Tax Revolt; Resisting Amoral Authority

Is it proper to tip an extortionist? Every paycheck I’ve ever received had taxes taken out before I even saw the check. Then to add insult to injury I am expected to pay end user taxes when I purchase products. Lately, I have been watching our politicians writing some pretty big checks on our account and if I’m not mistaken, we are already overdrawn. I think I have some idea how they are going to pay for this check writing spree, with our taxes.

Taxation without representation is cause for revolution. That is the history of this country. For too many years the Democratic and Republican parties have held a monopoly on national office. Using this monopoly they have bankrupted our economy, instigated wars of aggression, lent military and economic support to countless dictators, tailored the laws and manipulated public policy in order to open up the treasury to their benefactors in big business. By any objective criteria their behavior represents malfeasance, racketeering, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Note Attorney General Holder; who admits that waterboarding is torture but doesn’t seem interested in prosecuting those who approved the use of this “enhanced interrogation” technique. When the top kick in the Justice Department is reluctant to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity it begs a question; “How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.” Henry David Thoreau

The condition of our citizens only further justifies the need for revolution. Allow me to illustrate by telling you about someone I know, call him Dan;
Dan lives a simple life; absent anything I would consider a luxury, hell, not even cable TV, no computer or expensive toys. He has worked in they system for approximately 18years, paying roughly 25-35% of his income to the tax man. He had always had health insurance. Six months ago, he was laid off. So, he started a small service business, it went ok for about four months but the last two months he has only been able to afford food and not quite make his rent. Unfortunately, Dan developed a hernia. He has been advised by the emergency room physician not to work and to schedule surgery. But Dan likes eating and he needs to work for that to happen. He can not afford surgery and free medical aid is not available because he is still working enough to feed himself.

I know that Dan’s situation is not unique. Having worked in Emergency Rooms across the country, I have seen his story repeated thousands of times. Someone has a medical condition that is not emergent but they don’t have the means to pay for definitive care. So they wait until the condition becomes emergent, then the emergency room will address their problem, at a much greater cost to the society. This system is patently absurd. It is 2009 and citizens of the most powerful industrialized nation the world has ever seen can find themselves wanting for basic medical services.

If a citizen can not expect to receive basic medical care when needed, regardless of ability to pay, then I am most certainly being taxed without representation. I would consider access to health care a fundamental right of any citizen in an industrialized nation capable of providing that service. And we are most assuredly capable of providing it. We are paying more for the services now by forcing people to wait until their condition becomes emergent before we open the system to them. Providing access to definitive and preventive care comes at a much lower cost than waiting for peoples conditions to deteriorate into an emergency. A system that will not insure it’s citizens simple access to basic medical care, yet has sufficient funds for wars of aggression, is a system to which, I can not lend my conscientious support.

“The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.”

“It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.” HDT

Dissent is the only decent thing to do; resisting undemocratic authority is a moral imperative.

Lazo

If you would like to read Thoreau’s essay on “Civil Disobedience” it can be found in its entirety at; http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html